


Maple Water

by Flyleaf02



Series: Asexual!Destiel [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aromantic!Dean, Domestic Bliss, Fluff, Het!Dean, I hope, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, POV Third Person Limited, Platonic Kissing, Profound Bond, Short & Sweet, asexual!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-08 18:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyleaf02/pseuds/Flyleaf02
Summary: It’s making Dean self conscious how as more time passes on, more he’s getting used to the angel invading his personal space.





	1. Bruised Masculinity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in Season 6.

It’s good being on the road again, having Sam back.

He’s holding up with the wall Death put up in his mind and that’s all that’s important. They’ll deal with the fall-out when it comes. Meanwhile, Dean is just happy to lean back and enjoy the sun, even the sky looks different, bluer, with Sam alive.

Shinier, beautiful. There’s a tepid wind blowing through the parking lot, fresh and autumnal. It smells like dirt and life slowly falling asleep.

Sun beats down on his neck as he’s bent down over the opened hood of the impala to give her a check-up. She needs some love, poor girl. He hasn’t really been keeping her top shape this past year. Too caught up in his own grief and inadequacy to care for anything but playing the part for Lisa and Ben. Playing house. Oh, he cared. Way too much. Still does.

It still felt like being crammed into a box not fit for him. Just this side of too tight. All with Lisa’s soft loving eyes and expectations. Ben wasn’t much different than caring for Sammy, he knew that part. Keep the kid fed, clean, healthy and in school. That, he knew, understood. But he was too used to casualness to fully be at ease in Lisa’s life. Never exactly sure what she kept him for, what his purpose was.

He didn’t regret his time with Lisa, sweet sweet girl, who deserves better. Lisa and Ben, he’ll miss them that’s for sure but it’s for the best. His and theirs. It wouldn't have been fair to stay —even if Sammy hadn’t played a catalyst role in his detachment and Lisa’s anger— when deep down he may just not be wired for this civilian life.

They’ll fix Sammy, put Heaven and Hell back in their pretty boxes and swallow the key, and all in all, his nights may be riddled with nightmares and loneliness hard to bear, his life may not be good by a long shot but it could be worse.

Dean eases the hood down, his baby all pampered up and wipes his hand on a dirty rag.

The motel room is empty, Sam somewhere in town, away from his big brother, brooding and scratching at corners of his mind he shouldn’t scratch at, to _know_ what he doesn’t need to know. They fight, they argue but in the end there’s not much Dean can do but wait and prepare for when shit is going to hit the fan because it will.

He bets his left nut that Sam is holed up at the local library.

He’s scrubbing his hands in the bathroom sink, working out the grease on his joints and from under his short nails. He barely winces when he looks up and Cas looks back at him through the mirror as patient as ever, and just as caught in Dean’s orbit as he used to be. It sparks a brief memory of a similar encounter, long ago. Dean doesn’t lecture Castiel on personal space, not that much anymore anyway, part of him having sort of given up on that front. He merely smirks and the angel gives him that curious tilt of head.

“Hello, Dean."

"Hey buddy.” He greets him with affection and turns the tap off, drying his hands on a clean towel hanged on the wall. It’s not settling down easy on him, the way Castiel never showed up, never fucking  _answered,_ a whole damn year. _You were happy._ Happy?

Turning to face him in the small space, Dean frowns, heart suddenly heavy, unsure what to say, what to do. “Sam is out, if you wanted to see him.” He says instead of everything that burns his tongue and sours in his chest. Castiel gives him a puzzled look but nods anyway, the crow feet around his ageless blue eyes wrinkling tenderly, sadly. “I wanted to see you. Before you go home."

"Home?” Dean repeats uncomprehendingly, stiff lines of his mouth and eyes not unfriendly.

“To your family."

"My fa... my family is here.” It takes Dean a moment, watching fleeting shadows pass over the angel’s face before he recognizes a familiar emotion; grief. And Castiel’s sorrow is frightening, much more gut-wrenchingly terrifying than any make-believe Dean might have had with Lisa. It's so much more real. _Lisa_. “ _Oh._ Hmm, yeah no, it’s over. Lisa called me. She said not to come back.” He says lamely. It doesn’t soothe the pain on the angel’s expression only shifts it toward something akin to guilt. “I’m not leaving.” Dean continues when his words doesn't have the wanted effect, as if Cas didn't understand him the first time. Castiel nods stiffly, “I’m sorry.”

Taking an hesitant step forward then two, Dean's hand is on the nape of Cas’s neck before he can think it through, angling the angel’s face up gently. “Nothing to blame yourself for Cas, come on.” He chastises good naturedly, pats the angel's neck once. Frozen in place, the seraph doesn’t blink and Dean just can’t bare to look at the angel’s pain anymore. “It was fun while it lasted but it's just… It wasn't me, you know?”

Shrugging unapologetically, Dean gently squeezes Cas's shoulder. “Want a beer or something? Watch some crappy movie?” Dean smiles, his attention quickly zeroing in on the fact that he doesn't feel compelled to let go of the guy just yet. That he likes the give of skin under his fingertips, and it should be weird. It is.

Cas's gaze saddens, the weight of unsaid words on his mind palpable in the air between them. Dean tries being patient, wait for Cas to man up and spill but it's never been his forte when he could just ask and pry an answer out of the guy. “What is it?”

And for better or worse, Castiel doesn't know how to censure himself and answers, “I want to kiss you.” He looks crossed by it, weighed down.

The proximity is made that much more obvious. A few inches, Cas could lean in and they'd be kissing. Dean has no idea how he feels about that. Not disgusted, uncomfortable maybe, nervous for certain. “Hmm, Cas. I don't… Men aren't my thing, sorry. I'm not… attracted to…” Dean makes a vague hand gesture that means everything and nothing at the same time.

Cas averts his eyes, frowning.

“I don't… I am not attracted to you."

"Then I don't follow.”

His hand on Castiel’s neck is pushed down, suddenly replaced by the angel's own arm around his shoulders holding him loosely. This is getting out of hands, Dean thinks. It's counter intuitive and plain weird. It's less flight triggering than Dean has always pictured that sort of unfortunate encounter going though.

“Do humans only kiss when they want to have sex?” The angel asks and Dean is past the point where he would blurt jokes to defuse the tension. “Most of the time, yes."

"I don't want to have sex with you.” Cas states very seriously and the relief Dean is submerged in softens the rod in his back as he lets Cas crowd him for a hug.

“I apologize. I have missed you.”

It’s not lost on Dean what exactly Cas is apologizing for —ignoring him, running— and it’s both not enough and more than Dean thought he needed. He pats the angel's back in return, his hand lingering. “Missed you too, Cas.” Dean admits under his breath, not too loud in case his rapidly bruising masculinity hears him. “What does it have to do with kissing me?"

"You're my friend."

"Friends don't kiss. Especially not guy friends.”

Cas leans back his head, searching Dean's gaze. What for he's not sure. A lie? The truth?

“If you do not like it, I will not do it again.”

Dean's brain screams at him to abort, shot that beast down while he can. For Cas's sake if not his own. His heart doesn't interject and it must mean something that his first inclign is to nod, dazed, “Yeah, okay.”

Their lips meet and it doesn't feel like the first time.

Dean remembers. The taste of it, the softness of it, the reassurance of it. It’s warm and comforting, and the body pressed up to his melts into the embrace. Just a press of lips on lips, so gentle. It’s easy.

They break apart and Castiel’s smile is tender and soft, it makes Dean’s stomach do funny flips. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. Someday Dean will ask Cas about Hell, if they kissed down there.

“Thank you.”

Dean groans back, non-committal. “Sure. Beer, yes or no?"

"I can offer company."

"Good, come on.” Patting Cas on the shoulder roughly, Dean steps around him and makes a beeline for the refrigerator. His masculinity needs it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is my own brand of PMS. Not kidding. Anyone else do that? Two-three days prior, start writing like the world's gonna end soon? I have an idea for a third chapter, a sequel of sort, but no promises. I've been careful to write this so far as stand-alone chapters for the very reason that I don't know if I'll end up updating it or abandoning it after my lady week is over like I tend to do. TMI, I know.


	2. Bruised Masculinity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Freestyle by Lil Baby (instrumental)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI99CwajOt4)
> 
>  
> 
> It's less a multiple chapter story than timestamps with a progressing timeline. If it makes any sense at all. No? Good.
> 
> Set in Season 8.

The industrial kitchen’s crude neon lighting is harsh in the early morning.

Dirty plates from last night are still in the sink; take-out containers, empty cups and beer bottles on the island top. The pan Sam cooked his heathen vanilla soy milk pancakes in is still on the burner. What a way to ruin an already perfectly good breakfast. It’s criminal. Sam’s pleased expression when he took a bite be damned.

“It’s good for you.” He’d said, offering Dean one and then the second half of a basket of strawberries when the answer he got was a pointed look and a scuff. Dean had glared at the offending pieces of fruits until Sam had slid them next to his own greasy A&W take-out, “You need more vitamin C.” Yeah, right… Damn puppy eyes. Those too are criminal.

He’d caved, ungracefully but still, he’d stuffed half the remaining strawberries in one-go to be rid of them more quickly. Sam had rolled his eyes, but hey, he ate them, so.

Now he’s cleaning up the aftermath.

They’d been slightly drunk and too tired to tidy. Lazy was more like it, if he were to be honest. Eyelids heavy with unshed sleep, Dean gathers up the dishes in the sink and the trash in the bin under the counter.

Coffee first.

He starts up the coffee machine, grumbling under his breath as he fiddles with the top compartiment and buttons for a good thirty seconds. The only reason he puts up with the damn thing is the brew of the Gods that spews from it after he’s cursed enough to usually warrant himself a long hard stare from Sam.

Dean slips a clean cup under the machine as the little blinking red light finally switches to green. Pleased, he rummages through the refrigerator as he waits. It’s filled with vegetables of all things, Sam needs an intervention he swears, but thankfully on the bottom shelf there’s half a packet of canadian bacon and a few eggs left. He takes those out.

Standing in front of the opened door for a few more seconds, he also picks a small fresh cucumber, so fresh in fact there’s still dirt on it from the farmer’s market. ...Goddammit.

The coffee machine settles down into silence and Dean sips at his cup for awhile, hands warm, eyes closed and blissful. He puts the cup down on the bench when his stomach starts protesting against his prolonged inaction and reaches over for the dirty pan on the stove and scrubs it clean in the sink before putting it back onto the burner for the eggs. He spreads out the bacon on an oven rack and puts it in and then slices the cucumber onto a plate, scowling.

“I do not understand what that piece of fruit did to anger you.”

Startled, Dean drops the knife and it clatters down to tiled floor. “Goddammit, Cas!"

-My apologies.” The angel offers, trench coat and blank expression, as he stands too close to Dean for comfort. Sighing in resignation, Dean picks up the knife and rinses it under the tap before continuing effectively punishing the cucumber for its mere existence. The curious tilt of Castiel’s head as he looks onto Dean and his utensil wielding technique is familiar and soothing in an odd way and Dean sighs again, more happily. “Cucumbers are vegetables."

"By definition any organic structure which develops seeds inside the said organic structure is a fruit, most known examples being cucumbers, tomatoes…"

"Cas, it’s way too early for this.” Dean interjects tiredly as Castiel narrows his eyes at the interruption. “Cucumbers are fruits.” He insists. Dean smiles, letting out an amused laugh which seems to appease the angel as he smiles back. “They’re anything you want, man. Bacon and eggs, want some?"

"May I remind you that I do not need to eat?"

"I’m not asking if you _need_ some. Yes or no?”

Cas looks lost for a moment, leaning closer, frowning as if he doesn’t understand the difference and Dean knows that as far as the angel and food are concerned, it’s a very real possibility.

“No, thank you.” He answers politely and Dean shrugs, emptying the rest of his coffee cup before adding it to the growing pile in the sink. “Eeh, more for me.”

Opening the refrigerator, Dean takes out the butter and comes back to a very cumbersome angel in his way to the stove. He has to manoeuvre him a few steps back, firmly grabbing him by the shoulders to do so. That too is familiar, and it’s making Dean self conscious how as more time passes on, more he’s getting used to the angel invading his personal space. Dean isn’t sure if he misses the days when he thought this was just another oblivious thing Cas did.

Before he can release him, Castiel gently places his arms around Dean’s waist and pulls him close to his chest. He can feel the angel’s warm breath on his neck, a brush of chapped lips. “I missed you.”

It’s new, tentative, _this,_ between them, and couldn’t be more far removed from sexual intent.

“Missed you too.” Dean murmurs back, lets himself be embraced and it’s evelopping, loving.

It isn’t strictly platonic with the way Cas likes to hold on to him for long minutes at a time. Dean doubts it qualifies as romantic love either but he isn’t sure he would know what that would feel like, maybe because he just doesn’t swing that way, nonetheless it settles on his chest like a balm and who is he to deny Cas such a small thing to give that makes him happy? Because it might not be love but he does care. A whole awful lot. He’s just not sure what Cas is getting out of this arrangement and that scares him sometimes, Castiel’s utter disinterest for his corporeal form — _a mere vessel to your soul._ A soul unworthy of such devoted attention he can’t return. Scared to disappoint. Hurt him.

Castiel’s scruff drags against his cheek as he withdraws a step and their lips meet chastly. Dean closes his eyes and lets himself tilt his head into the contact. It’s odd, unnatural, yet light like floating, and a thick blanket just out of the dryer on a cold winter day.

Castiel tastes like sweet maple water, rainfall, and peace.

The angel’s lips part, barely, a cold tendril of Grace seeking acceptance. Dean drinks it in, and he can keep up the casual hookups, he can pretend, go steady with a girl friend but he knows that nothing will ever be more intimate than this lifeforce exchange.

It warms him from the inside, soothes him, rights him in ways Dean thinks he hasn’t felt in years.

It’s difficult to accept.

The angel lets him go after that, a satisfied tenderness to his blue gaze that squeezes Dean’s heart with something painful that he can’t identify nor want to let go of.

Just in time too as Sam waltz into the kitchen, mop of hair in his face and still asleep on his feet. A brief nod of acknowledgement toward Cas later he’s seated on a bar stool across the island, grumpy and generally unresponsive until Dean puts a sugared cup of coffee between his little brother’s sasquatch hands.

Dean ends up making more eggs anyway as he’s forcefed melon cubes and tomato slices.

"No Cas, goddammit, they’re _not_ fruits."

"Actually, they are—"

" _Sam,_ don’t start!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an idea I couldn't get out of my head. Imagining Sam needling Dean to eat healthy makes me fuzzy inside, I don't know why.


	3. Reassurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in season 9.

She hasn’t bothered giving Dean her name.

She has dark hair, generous curves and manhandles him into bed with a sensual aggressivity that pushes all of Dean's buttons. She takes, and takes and Dean is more than willing to give. She smirks smugly at him when they're done and doesn't ask for his number. He's tipsy and loose limbed, and satisfied as he watches her pull her skirt down.

She winks at him when she catches him leer and then she's out of his life as soon as she barged in.

Sam likes to call him an hedonist like it's an insult and he's not wrong. Dean idly thinks that he would have let her cuddle if she had wanted to. Probably just as good that she left, might have been awkward. He’d drink another beer but is too lazy to get up.

It's the key fumbling in the lock that pulls him out of the light doze he's fallen into.

A fairly sober Cas steps in the motel room elbowing back the door closed behind him. Longer hair, unshaved, humanity is an odd look on the angel Dean thinks as Castiel pulls his sweater off and over his head. He loses the shoes, socks and jeans, balanced on one feet then the other, a stiff but practiced motion.

Dean growns a vague greeting, “Sam's still out?"

"Yes.” If there's something Cas didn't lose with the fall it's his no nonsense attitude and straightforward brevity. It's both annoying and reassuring.

“How drunk was he? Am I gonna have to go back there to pick up his ass off the floor?”

Cas shots him a quick glance as he finishes folding his clothes and placing them neatly on the top of the dresser. “He assured me that he would not need assistance.”

Dean hums, non-committal. He heard that one before. Ended up having to pull a rain soaked Sam off the sidewalk, and giggly too that damn kid.

The angel, ex-angel whatever, gives the spare cot a dirty glare before wrinkling his nose. The douchey remark dies in Dean’s throat as Cas proceeds instead toward the occupied bed, climbing next to him under the covers in his worn black t-shirt and boxer briefs. “Hmm, Cas?"

"I am not sleeping on the cot.” Comes the dry answer from somewhere near his left shoulder.

“‘s uncomfortable?” He hears himself say, a nervous strain to his voice. A moody snort is all he gets before an arm is thrown over his chest under the blanket and a face presses against the meat of his arm. And then Cas settles down, buried deep in his cocoon, the top of his head barely visible.

Dean is suddenly very aware of the fact that he's naked, and of Cas's knee snug on his hip. This might be a step too far in the weird. Sure, he felt like cuddling but that's… “Hmm, I'm not exactly dressed under here, dude."

"I will not touch you.”

No matter how many times the ex-angel keeps telling him a variant of those words Dean doesn't _get_ it. Doesn't understand what Cas wants from this, him. Cuddling, kisses, and that's it? It's nice, sure but it can't be all the guy wants. All he’s okay settling down for.

It's more obvious now that Cas is human that for him it is romantic.

Sometimes when they kiss in the morning he has that awestruck look in his eyes afterward that makes Dean feel like an unworthy asshole.

“Are you… ‘you sure?"

"I do not _want_ to touch you."

"Not that I'm not happy for that but why not? You… you _like_ me, right?"

"I see no appeal to it. And I do.”

The hand on his chest gently start rubbing his collarbone and Cas sighs, “I love you. It makes me happy.” Dean isn't sure what to make of that declaration. Clearly Cas is content with how things are, Dean hopes he's not lying anyway but…

“So what, you just want to cuddle me to death and that's it?"

"I would prefer you not die.” Cas mumbles sleepily, squeezing his shoulder once before going still. “Yes.” He adds after a silence. “But if this makes you uncomfortable I can sleep in the other bed and Sam will sleep on the cot.”

The image of Sam’s gangly feet dangling off the makeshift bed by a good foot is laughable. Still, it's easier to relax knowing Cas is willing to give him an out, “It's not that. Just… you sure you're happy, you know… I like you but I don't…”

Movements from under the covers halts him from finishing that thought.

Cas peeks his face out, angled up, almost an invitation which it might truly be. Dean can barely see him in the dark, his harsh yet frank blue eyes hidden from him but suddenly it's a non issue; if Cas wants to sleep here Dean is okay with it.

“You care, don't you?"

"You know I do.” They wouldn't be halfway stuck in this particular dance if he didn't.

He wouldn't be scared shitless some days when it hits him like a mace in the face just how fragile the angel now is. Mortal. Given the choice he isn't sure he would still choose his brother over the fallen angel, and that, scares him more than anything else. If he pretends hard enough he might be able to convince himself that the next words that reluctantly leaves his mouth are a side product of the beer he hardly drank enough of for this conversation, “I don't know what worries me the most these days… the effects that the trials has had on Sam, or your humanity.”

Cas's expression remains unchanged as he moves his hand up to pat Dean's neck, a gesture he's learned from the brothers and it tightens Dean's chest with unexpected affection for the guy; Cas's rational mind to a fault not inclined to make a big deal out of Dean's rare emotional openness.

“Then yes, I am happy.” The angel's thumb brushes the nub of his jaw and it's just so easy to lean down and peck Castiel's lips. Once, twice, lingering on the second pass. Angel or human; Cas tastes like maple water, and it’s familiar in the laziest of ways. The angel sighs, and that subtle content noise rights Dean more fully than Cas's reassurance could. They can kiss and cuddle, it's fine he's used to it, it's comforting if he's being honest with himself which he rarely is. He just doesn't want Cas to get hurt in the long run when he'll ultimately realize Dean truly can't offer more.

Dean lays his head back down on his pillow catching a faint glimpse of Cas's misty loving expression. What he did to warrant such a look, Dean's not sure.

“What about Sam? He'll see you… in the bed with me."

"Are you afraid he will not understand?"

"Maybe.” Joke about it, blow it out into something that it is not, sully it…

“I was more drunk than I appeared. Very drunk.” Cas states blandly and it takes Dean a second to follow but then he smiles, a hint of thoughtless flirt in the lopsided pull of his lips, “Pretty smashed alright, if you climbed into bed with _me_..

"I like being in bed with you. You're warm.”

Laughing softly, Dean nuzzles the top of Cas's head and it hits him how easily he could get used to this too, “Sure."

"I love you."

"Yeah, okay. Sleep now."

"Goodnight Dean."

"Night.”

 

When a grumpy Cas stumbles out of bed that morning to drag his feet to the bathroom then back into bed and Dean’s breathing space, waking him in the process, Sam briefly looks up from his place at the table where he’s hunched over the day's newspaper, laptop only a finger away. There’s a curious raise to his drawn eyebrows but then he grimaces and rubs at his temple with what seems to be the mother of all hangover as he sips at his coffee.

He never mentions it. Not then, not when it becomes a semi-regular thing either.

 


End file.
